Huntley pulls away from Marengo in 2nd half
Visiting Marengo tried to prolong Huntley's recent shooting slump with a box-and-one defense aimed at shutting down 3-point specialist Zac Boster and the Red Raiders.
It worked for a half until Huntley penetrated the puzzle and pulled away for a 60-28 nonconference victory Wednesday.
"It confused us at first, but we finally figured it out," Huntley senior point guard Zach Pettit said. "We needed to penetrate more. With them going box and one they faced Zac the whole time, so that opened it up for our guards to drive a little more, go to the opposite side. The corner was open and it opened up our offense."
On the heels of a blowout loss at Jacobs last Friday in which the Red Raiders shot 20 percent for the game, Huntley (5-2) was held to 20 points in the first half, which included a 3-of-11 shooting performance in the second quarter.
Still, they led 20-12 at halftime after forcing 11 first-half turnovers by the winless Indians (0-7). Three of those miscues translated directly to fast-break layups in the first quarter by Jordan Neukirch, Tyler Brunschon and Tyler Lawrence.
Marengo limited Boster to 2 shots in the first half, but his second attempt snapped the nylon from 3-point range with 2:58 left in the first half to put Huntley ahead 20-8.
The senior shooting guard opened the third quarter with another 3-pointer, fed by a Neukirch kickout pass. Pettit followed with back-to-back baskets on a fast-break layup and a putback to make it 27-10.
The offense kept humming in the quarter with 2 free throws from junior Richard Gonzaga, a 3-pointer from Lawrence and a Boster drive through the lane, which he followed with another 3-point make. Huntley led 41-20 after three quarters.
Boster (11 points) took 5 shots and made 4 of them, including all 3 attempts from 3-point range.
"We should have definitely been able to execute better than we did in the first half, but that box and one limited how many shots I could take," said Boster, who won the Class 3A 3-point shootout in Peoria last March. "In the second half we did a much better job of exploiting the weaknesses in the defense and Jordan did a great job in the second half of making shots. Hopefully, things will go well on the offensive end now."
Neukirch snapped out of a personal shooting slump by sinking 7-of-11 shots for a game-high 17 points, including all 4 attempts in the fourth quarter. As a team, Huntley sank 15-of-24 attempts in the second half (62.5 percent).
"After that showing at Jacobs we really wanted to turn things around," Neukrich said. "We still aren't totally happy with the way we played, but we ended the game on a positive note with a positive second half going into our Christmas Tournament."
The Red Raiders will open pool play at DeKalb's 81st Annual Chuck Dayton Tournament against Harlem (3-3) on Saturday at 2 p.m.
There will be a couple of hard practices between now and then, and offense may not be the focal point.
"I wasn't happy with how we played defensively even though they had 28 points," Huntley coach Marty Manning said. "We were out of position a bunch of times. They missed a lot of layups like we did or else it would have been much closer.
"We're not clicking. I don't know what it is, but all the guys are kind of out of sync. So we have a lot to work on."